According to the Administration for Children and Families Child Maltreatment Report, in New Hampshire in 2012 there were 901 reported child abuse and neglect victims. There was also one child abuse death that year. This is a horrific statistic if you believe as I do that even one victim of abuse or neglect is one too many.

N.H. Children's Trust, a local grassroots organization exists with the mission to eliminate child abuse and neglect in New Hampshire. The N.H. Children's Trust engages Granite Staters from the general public, community businesses, and religious groups to help with this vital mission.

Early this year, a small group of women, known as the Purple Finches, assembled in Gilmanton with the goal of contributing handmade newborn hats to the Period of Purple Crying Program. This program, run by the N.H. Children's Trust, provides education regarding infant crying, how to best console babies, and stresses the importance of never shaking or hurting an infant to new parents of infants born in 13 New Hampshire hospitals.

The little handmade purple baby hats accompany this education and serve as a daily reminder of the lessons taught. This year 4,000 hats were made by volunteers in New Hampshire. Of those, over 500 were donated by the Purple Finches.

On Saturday, Nov. 8, from 10 a.m. to noon, at the Gilmanton Community Church in Gilmanton Corners, there will be an informational session for members of the community interested in learning more about current and future endeavors of the Purple Finches.

The morals of a community determines the society of that community and that society will determine the system of government (town and school).

I have read the book "Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Picoult. Was it ordinary moments in a teen's life? Was it joyous or depressing? In my opinion the book does not focus on eighth-grade reality, but takes away precious moments, feelings, and attitudes. It is not the decision of a school board to determine the food for thought that parents want for their children.

Did the Gilford School Board see the faces and thoughts of the students, kids who would never really be kids again? I found the material to be distasteful and I praise William Baer for protecting his daughter and speaking out to the parents and public. Some parts of the book instructs kids how to sneak around without their parents' knowledge. Kids are still very, very impressive at this age. We must all remember that our children belong to the parents, and that Mr. Baer's constitutional rights were abused by the local school district and the police.

School curriculum should be centered around the development of academic skills, critical thinking and high literacy.

"It is by the Goodness of God that in our country we have those two unspeakable precious things: freedom of speech and freedom of conscience." This is a quote from Mark Twain.

What has happened to English class? Mark Twain wrote and spoke on universal, vital subjects — the meaning of life, friendship, integrity. His proverbs have become an important part of everyday life — they are widely and wisely quoted. "On with the dance, let Joy be unconfined, is my motto" This is appropriate for the classroom.

I attended the Belknap Convention/commissioner's meeting last March, there was a law enforcement officer standing in uniform and listening to the public input about issues at hand. People became loud and disruptive, but they were not arrested and prosecuted, they were allowed their constitutional right of freedom of speech.

I have called the courthouse in Laconia. I encourage all parents and grandparents to attend in support of our freedom of speech and our right to voice what we want our children to read. The date is Monday, Nov. 10, at 7 a.m., at the Circuit Court, 26 Academy St., Laconia. It is a hearing to dismiss the case. It is early, but We the People need to be present. I will be there.

There are few things I find more contemptible than the self-righteous know-it-all pontifications of people who pretend they know there is a God and what God thinks. James McCoole is the latest such voice from the Snake Oil Refinery who pretends he knows all about what YHWH wants. James tells us "Our lives are gifts from God, and only He has the right to take them back." Says who? McCoole? His make-believe God?

An ancient book of tales and historical fiction written my men in the Iron Age? He doesn't like the fact that Brittany Maynard ended her life peacefully instead of unnecessarily suffering and under a Niagara Falls of medical costs. That is not surprising since many Christians worship a God of depraved violence that will burn you forever for having the wrong religion. Saint Paul has a whole list of things in Romans that are worthy of death. It's right out of a Edgar Allen Poe book of psychotic horrors! Mr. McCoole would much rather have Brittany Maynard and her loved ones suffer because that's what God wants, he says. You have no right to determine your destiny in Mr. McCoole's spooky prehistoric world of demons and deities hiding under the bed and in the closet. Oh, and a magical book!

Mr. McCoole speaks of a book of alleged rules that God gave us and a slaughtered Lamb of God. A book that is just a book and only that, I might add, that reflects the times it was written in. A barbaric society writes a barbaric book such as the Bible. It has a barbaric God and a barbaric system of justice. There are no primary historical sources for Jesus' existence and biblical archaeologists believe the entire Pentateuch is fable. The great kingdom of Judah is a myth; it was a tribe. There was no Jewish captivity. There was no Exodus and Ten Commandments event, they say. Evolution is fact so there was no "Fall from Grace" and "original sin" in a magic garden of talking snakes and no belly buttons so there is nothing to be saved from, therefore no need for any savior. It's all excellent story-telling on an epic scale.

To many religious nuts, it's okay for a God to predestine his son to be brutally murdered but it's not alright for a terminally ill woman to die with dignity, in peace. It's okay for God to have people execute homosexuals, unbelievers, Wiccans, unruly children, and adulterers, but it's not okay for someone to pass gently into the night instead of facing an agonizing death. It's okay for God to murder almost every living thing with a flood and it was okay for God to murder every Egyptian family's firstborn child, but it's not okay for a person to die peacefully with their loving family surrounding them.

Humans can't stand to see their pets suffer and opt to have them put to sleep when the suffering gets too great. It's humane and caring. But, humans, naw, we gotta suffer agony till the end because of some pretend God in some people's heads. So instead of being humane and caring, the sock puppets of the religious world tell us that we don't deserve such humane treatment and should be treated as if we are being treated by a sadistic psychopath that enjoys our pain.

It's clear that in the Bible, God seems to get a big kick out of world suffering and lots of killing and cruel and unusual punishments. After all, the Bible's God created the Lake of Fire before the foundations of the world. Mr. McCoole's War God YHWH puts humanity's worst dictators in the amateur column! Doesn't that give you a warm and fuzzy feeling?

If Mr. McCoole wants to be cool, he can turn his attention to mental health and gun concerns because 20,000 people a year kill themselves — unnecessarily in most cases. Booze, mental illness, and guns together take a terrible toll.

We at Dental Expressions, the office of Dr. Darren Boles, would like to thank the many businesses and individuals that made our breast cancer fundraiser in honor of our 10th anniversary on Oct. 17 a success. So many of our local businesses stepped up and gave generous donations of gift certificates and services to be raffled or auctioned off to benefit this great cause. We would like to thank:

The election cyclone blew through, repudiating a second time the presidency and policies of Obama and the Democrats. There has been no greater gift to the Republican Party from Maine to Oregon than the destructive, demonizing and dividing personality of Barack Obama. Obama single-handedly energized the heart, soul and spirit of the Republicans like no other human being on earth could have.

Obama stands for everything Republicans despise. Obama was not on the ballot Tuesday, but the failure of his presidency was seen everywhere. Democrats ran from Obama as if he had Ebola. In 2008 Barack proclaimed himself a political, Herculean, Houdini. By 2014 almost every Democrat running for office refused to admit they knew Obama's name, let alone be seen next to him in campaign ads. One Democrat even refused to admit publicly she even voted for him.To understand the incredible level harm and destruction Barack Obama has caused the Democratic Party CNN's John King offered an electoral map of the U.S. comparing the red and blue makeup of every political district, nationwide between 2008 to 2014. Even a season political reporter like King commented the comparison was so remarkable it was almost unbelievable. In 2008 the map revealed an almost evenly divided country with 50/50 control for each party. Since Obama took office, the map now reveals Republican control of about 80 percent of the geography of America. The epic, landslide loss Democrats suffered in 2010 combined with Tuesday's losses has created a very, blood red map. Except for New England , New York and California it is a wall of solid red from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains north to south.

Republicans now control 31 out of 50 governorships, including even the bluest of blue states, Massachusetts. There is little wonder why the Republican renaissance. Two-thirds of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction. The vast majority of Americans say Obama is a highly polarizing figure. In a recent poll of all Americans 46 percent said Obama had increased the racial divide. Another, 13 percent said he improved it, and 41 percent said he made no difference at all.

Middle-class family incomes have fallen for six years. Part-time jobs are now the norm after Obamacare rules. College graduates and their families are drowning in a record $1.3 trillion in debt loaded on them by union labor in education that refuses to reform to hold costs down. Obama demonizes the rich, but it is his policies and his Fed that have made them far richer than they have ever been in history. We have record inequality because Obama lit a bonfire under it.

Working Americans of every class and color, most especially white have deserted the Democratic Party in droves because Democrats do not now represent their best interests. There is nothing complicated about this political dynamic, helping explain why the country is now 80 percent Republican, geographically. The best interests of minorities collide head-on with the best interest of Main Street, middle Americans. Voters see straight through the duplicity and deviousness of Democrats who suggest otherwise. When asked in exit polls why they vote Republican, middle-class Americans say they are sick and tired of working, supporting those who do not. Minorities, in the tens of millions, have a huge and disparate impact on welfare costs paid for in large part directly or indirectly by the middle class.

The majority of middle voters see government as the problem, not the solution. This conflicts directly with Democrats who see more expensive, more expansive government, knotted in more regulation as the only solution to every problem. That colossal difference in ideology has driven working class, middle-Americans to the arms of Republicans who offer a vibrant, economic growth agenda. Democrats love to divide the country for votes. They now pit middle-class, working American against minorities hoping the middle class is stupid. They are not, as they proved Tuesday.